Red card for bookies

WHEN the country’s most profitable gambling firms promised to stop advertising during live sporting events, the Mail greeted the announcement with caution.

We worried it was a cynical ruse by avaricious bookmakers to avoid curbs on the relentless barrage of enticing commercials shown on pre-watershed TV. Unsurprisingly, it seems we were right. More than half of 250 adverts during football matches over Christmas were screened either before kick-off or after the final whistle. Anyone watching pre or postmatch coverage – including millions of vulnerable children – was still bombarded with inducements to bet.

Truly, the naked greed of the betting giants is jaw-dropping.

Yes, the rapacious companies took advantage of Tony Blair’s reckless 2005 liberalisation of the gambling laws to blitz sports fans with adverts.

But bookmakers know that spiralling numbers face ruinous addiction after being lured into the pernicious world of gambling.

If these multi-million pound firms really took their responsibilities seriously, they’d stop besieging people with propaganda – and playing roulette with their lives. ÷THERESA

May has displayed remarkable fortitude trying to get her hard-fought Brexit deal through a febrile Parliament. So if she teases extra concessions from the EU on the Irish backstop in a last-ditch bid to win the vote, it would not be a complete surprise.

Already, the PM’s agreement protects the economy and respects the referendum result, while averting a ‘no-deal’ exit. Polls show Tory voters back it. Now party MPs and activists must show support – accepting a good, rather than perfect, Brexit.